Pink Slime.

[kelmo]

Amarillo lost 200 jobs today. Please note that pink slime is not a technical term for this meat additive. Some call it a "filler". Some call it a "recovered meat product".

It contains ammonium hydroxide. This increases the pH of the product to destroy E.coli and Salmonella. The ammonium hydroxide dissipates fairly quickly according to reports.

Ya know... I did see some shock videos recently. Many big chains are responding and pulling the treated ground beef from use...

*thinks*

Ya know? Chlorine can be considered a poison. In fact, inviting some one to drink bleach will likely get you banned here on Stratics as a personal attack. Yet Chlorine is a vital and important part of all of our public water works. Would you drink, bath or cook with untreated water?

Almost every major food born illness documented in the last several years has been traced back to contaminated water. Mostly vegetables... Green onions irrigated with waste water, etc. Look it up.

Is this so called "pink slime" pretty? No. It is not. It has kept you safe for years though. So has bleach in your water.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

If I am not mistaken,chlorine was one of the chemicals used in WWI as an offensive weapon. Any gas that displaces oxygen can be dangerous. As for bleach,any prepper will know that three drops of bleach in a gallon of water will make most any clear water safe to drink.

 

[Cirno]

If memory serves, Chlorine becomes acidic when it reacts with water.
So a chlorine gas leak will burn your eyes/lungs etc.

I guess the Pink Goo thing is similar, except that chlorine in the water is pretty common knowledge.
Learning out of nowhere that there's weird stuff in your beefs is more likely to cause issues, because people have been eating it in faith that there's not significant non-beef augmentation to their beef.

 

[kelmo]

What is not to like here?

 

[kelmo]

Ohh! More pink!

 

[Taylor]

It's nutritious. *duck*

 

[Mirt]

If I am not mistaken,chlorine was one of the chemicals used in WWI as an offensive weapon. Any gas that displaces oxygen can be dangerous. As for bleach,any prepper will know that three drops of bleach in a gallon of water will make most any clear water safe to drink.

Please for the love of god do not do this. Chlorine gas is a corrosive just as sodium hypochlorate is (bleach). Chlorine gas was not used as a caustic agent for long though it was replaced first with phosgene (which is dangerous and they no longer teach undergrads to make) and mustard gas (which is really dangerous and hard to make). Drinking bleach will kill you, but using household bleach to disinfect water will give you water ever is in that water. Most bleach folks buy is maybe 3% maybe, sodium hypo (which is what trade professionals use is 30%) bleach levels in tap water may seem low but tap water has a great deal of waiting to truly clean the water you need at least 10PPM (parts per million) which is way below what a few drops of bleach will get you. Additionally household bleach loses strength really fast if you want to make water safe either get the tabs or a real filter. Trust me its worth it. It is sad that in this market 200 folks are going to be trying to find work in one town. I sure hope they can land on their feet.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Ohh! More pink!

Haha okay what's the deal with the captions at the bottom?

 

[Old Man of UO]

Did you know there is chlorine in table salt (aka sodium chloride)? Must means it is dangerous, right? Most public water systems use chlorine to disinfect, and MUST have residual chlorine (1-4 PPM) at each users' water tap to be considered safe for disinfection. Too much is bad, not enough isn't good either. Of course, there are the disinfection byproducts caused by organic decay and the chlorine, some are carcinogenic, and have strict limits. Water Utilities have been using sodium hypochlorite for years, some straight chlorine gas, but are switching to chlorine gas generators instead of buying and transporting chemicals. Still, when a system runs out of chlorine, we send them to Wal-Mart to buy unscented/no detergent generic bleach for emergency water treatment. I use a large tablespoon per 100 gallons for the horses' water in the summer to keep algae down.

Ammonium Hydroxide is GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) and is used in hundreds of food items. It is not non-toxic, but you wouldn't be able to stand the taste long before it would have any harmful health affects. The "Pink Slime" is low fat (about 97% fat free) and has the same nutritional value as 90%/10% ground beef. It is not scrap, it is not floor waste. But it was used in about 70% of all ground beef in the US, and helped to keep the cost of beef down. Now, there is a shortage of ground beef, the price is going up, and as Kelmo pointed out, several hundred people are now out of jobs.

By the way, water is also toxic if you drink too much.

 

[Triberius]

Ohh! More pink!

You know I used to fix a machine that made that stuff, and it's not just chicken nuggets, try Hot Dogs, Bologna, those little Vienna Sausages, etc. Most people have no idea what that stuff is made of and there is a lot of false information out there about it. No Organs, in there, it's mainly made up of trim meat and bone marrow.

 

[Mirt]

Did you know there is chlorine in table salt (aka sodium chloride)? Must means it is dangerous, right? Most public water systems use chlorine to disinfect, and MUST have residual chlorine (1-4 PPM) at each users' water tap to be considered safe for disinfection. Too much is bad, not enough isn't good either. Of course, there are the disinfection byproducts caused by organic decay and the chlorine, some are carcinogenic, and have strict limits. Water Utilities have been using sodium hypochlorite for years, some straight chlorine gas, but are switching to chlorine gas generators instead of buying and transporting chemicals. Still, when a system runs out of chlorine, we send them to Wal-Mart to buy unscented/no detergent generic bleach for emergency water treatment. I use a large tablespoon per 100 gallons for the horses' water in the summer to keep algae down.

Ammonium Hydroxide is GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) and is used in hundreds of food items. It is not non-toxic, but you wouldn't be able to stand the taste long before it would have any harmful health affects. The "Pink Slime" is low fat (about 97% fat free) and has the same nutritional value as 90%/10% ground beef. It is not scrap, it is not floor waste. But it was used in about 70% of all ground beef in the US, and helped to keep the cost of beef down. Now, there is a shortage of ground beef, the price is going up, and as Kelmo pointed out, several hundred people are now out of jobs.

By the way, water is also toxic if you drink too much.

I actually worked extensively with chlorine. What I am saying is that if your attempting to disinfect water with bleach your going to run into problems. Commercial bleach like at Wal-Mart just isn't strong enough for disinfection. It will work for algae reduction especially on a farm where phosphates are an issue. Also just so you know world wide chlorine disinfection of water is on the decline and ozone is becoming the disinfectant of choice as many cysts are not killed by chlorine. Also just to scare everyone with summer coming most pools run at 2-5 PPM Free Chlorine, if someone has an accident to consider the water safe it needs to have its chlorine level raised to around 30 PPM for 24 hours. That gets missed more often then it should and every year people get sick from contact with that. 3 Summers ago the CDC sent out pamphlets and increased the training on WRI (Waterborne Recreational Illness') but they have still barely dented it. So if your going to drink water for the love of god boil or filter it (or even better both) and if your going to store it sodium hypo is cheaper then commercial so buy some and get yourself a good test kit.
This product being gone is not going to help anyone and its going to reduce our overall income. Its sad that we make all our decisions anymore on things like "hey that looks gross lets ban it".

 

[silent]

Amarillo lost 200 jobs today. Please note that pink slime is not a technical term for this meat additive. Some call it a "filler". Some call it a "recovered meat product".

It contains ammonium hydroxide. This increases the pH of the product to destroy E.coli and Salmonella. The ammonium hydroxide dissipates fairly quickly according to reports.

Ya know... I did see some shock videos recently. Many big chains are responding and pulling the treated ground beef from use...

*thinks*

Ya know? Chlorine can be considered a poison. In fact, inviting some one to drink bleach will likely get you banned here on Stratics as a personal attack. Yet Chlorine is a vital and important part of all of our public water works. Would you drink, bath or cook with untreated water?

Almost every major food born illness documented in the last several years has been traced back to contaminated water. Mostly vegetables... Green onions irrigated with waste water, etc. Look it up.

Is this so called "pink slime" pretty? No. It is not. It has kept you safe for years though. So has bleach in your water.

You eat it. Next time you go to the store specifically request it if you think it's so great. Kids don't get that same choice when it's fed to them at school.

 

[Old Man of UO]

I actually worked extensively with chlorine. What I am saying is that if your attempting to disinfect water with bleach your going to run into problems. Commercial bleach like at Wal-Mart just isn't strong enough for disinfection. It will work for algae reduction especially on a farm where phosphates are an issue. Also just so you know world wide chlorine disinfection of water is on the decline and ozone is becoming the disinfectant of choice as many cysts are not killed by chlorine. Also just to scare everyone with summer coming most pools run at 2-5 PPM Free Chlorine, if someone has an accident to consider the water safe it needs to have its chlorine level raised to around 30 PPM for 24 hours. That gets missed more often then it should and every year people get sick from contact with that. 3 Summers ago the CDC sent out pamphlets and increased the training on WRI (Waterborne Recreational Illness') but they have still barely dented it. So if your going to drink water for the love of god boil or filter it (or even better both) and if your going to store it sodium hypo is cheaper then commercial so buy some and get yourself a good test kit.
This product being gone is not going to help anyone and its going to reduce our overall income. Its sad that we make all our decisions anymore on things like "hey that looks gross lets ban it".

Heh... you may have worked with chlorine, but I provide technical assistance to water/wastewater utilities throughout the state, and know what I am talking about... well, at least to this point!

Typical bleach sold here is 5% concentration, and it's what we use to disinfect home wells when they test positive for ecoli - you just have to watch out to make sure there aren't detergents and scents added. Treatment is in the range of 1-4 PPM (Parts Per Million); bleach is 1,000 times stronger than that. But to shock swimming pools when someone has an "accident" or once a week, yeah you use muriatic acid (HCl) instead. Ozone isn't disinfection of choice, too energy and capital intensive; instead it looks like UV is the go to as a backup for chlorine. And chlorine is almost the exclusive choice to disinfect wastewater effluent before discharging to lakes/streams.

You eat it. Next time you go to the store specifically request it if you think it's so great. Kids don't get that same choice when it's fed to them at school.

Just curious if you have ever been inside any food plant - I have, many times. If you have, you probably wouldn't be too hungry afterwards. Do you eat any snack chips? I swear, these are the worst to be found. The cleanest I've seen - Kellogs' cereal plant in Battle Creek, MI.

Have you eaten any burgers since 2002? Then you've probably eaten "Pink Slime" and didn't notice, whether from McDonald's or your local grocers. It doesn't add a taste to the food, and you wouldn't know it's in there unless someone told you. I'm just saying, this whole thing is an overreaction by activists groups that really know nothing about the thing they are protesting against.

 

[silent]

I'm sure I've eaten it. You know when you go to some taco or burger joint you're not getting high quality meat, but that's your choice to go there. There have been so many things introduced into our food over the last 50 years or so that have been touted as safe, yet we see more of an increase in illness, like cancer. If you were given a choice each day before your child went to school, one check box said ammonium hydroxide beef or beef what would you pick each morning?

 

[Taylor]

I've eaten it. No question. I'd like to eat less of it, but with the right seasoning, it's not half bad.

 

[Mirt]

Heh... you may have worked with chlorine, but I provide technical assistance to water/wastewater utilities throughout the state, and know what I am talking about... well, at least to this point!
Typical bleach sold here is 5% concentration, and it's what we use to disinfect home wells when they test positive for ecoli - you just have to watch out to make sure there aren't detergents and scents added. Treatment is in the range of 1-4 PPM (Parts Per Million); bleach is 1,000 times stronger than that. But to shock swimming pools when someone has an "accident" or once a week, yeah you use muriatic acid (HCl) instead. Ozone isn't disinfection of choice, too energy and capital intensive; instead it looks like UV is the go to as a backup for chlorine. And chlorine is almost the exclusive choice to disinfect wastewater effluent before discharging to lakes/streams.

Muriatic acid (for everyone not me and Old Man Hydro Chloric Acid) is not a shocking agent. In fact HCl will not work as a disinfectant its a strong acid. You are thinking of one of the non chlorine shocks which are not rated for, how shall we say fecal matter. The active part of Chlorine that provides disinfectant is HOCl- whish is a very weak acid but primarily a disinfectant. Also trade bleach may have been bottled at that but it loses power fast. UV hasn't been rated in my state for anything and is actually being banned out of swimming pools. Most water in Europe is Ozonated and that's gaining ground rapidly along the eastern sea board. It does require a large amount of capital but its proven. Additionally if the UV doesn't get it all in that first round your in real trouble. Of course for extra disinfecting of waste water your absolutely right its chlorine all the way its really the only accepted method. Its more for drinking water that you want to go higher. Bleach does not do well with either oxygen or sun light. It loses strength so fast that a 5% solution compares to nothing of the 23-32% range hypo does. Also the hypo is so much cheaper.

 

[Triberius]

Hehe, and no one mentions that most of your poultry is treated with Chlorine DiOxide during processing....

 

[Mirt]

Hehe, and no one mentions that most of your poultry is treated with Chlorine DiOxide during processing....

I am well aware of that, but I am worried that they will put more folks out of work the more we talk about it. My only concern is making sure none of my stratics friends try and re-enact the digestive diseases of the Oliver Twist age.